With Christmas around the corner and less than 4 days to go before you can sing Hallelujah, the Lord has come, I thought I'll peep in to help you with a lovely classic breakfast for your family to wake up to this Christmas morning. Its typically Western, hearty and sweet to call your morning off to a good start, supple enough that you may want to lay your head on it and snooze again, gives you the comfort of your bestie's company, and is the festive sorts that you can set up on table for your guests to dessert on.
For the longest time, I've had aversion to cinnamon in all things sweet. Let me not even get to the whys of it, for all I know, cinnamon in my arena existed best in the legion of savories, given the exception for a good Christmas fruit cake where it favorably unites with clove, cardamom and other spices, veiled in a way that it does not hit your senses directly and ruin the flavor. But, here it comes finally, the world coveted Cinnamon rolls looming right out of my kitchen to yours. I’m close to being a convert, convincingly not a cinnamon-dessert-hater anymore. These don’t look a lot like the traditional rolls. I mean they are not enormous in size to consume your palm, certainly not the perfect looking rolls that stand flawlessly edged shoulder to shoulder giving them a clean rip, nor do they bask in the sugary coated frosting that sinks into every groove merrily.
I would probably rechristen these as cinnamon pull apart rolls; owing to the pans I had and the amount of dough I made, they ended up this way. But they are cinnamon rolls essentially, so let's stick to that. They don’t snatch away the authenticity from the traditional ones. They smell great in and out of the oven, are near identical in their recipe, forgiving the eggs in the dough. They sat squishing in an eight inch round baking pan, my ideal dish to bake a nice chocolate cake in, but this time around they doubled up as my bread pan too, saving me gracefully from sunken cockeyed bread had I baked them in my ten inch dish instead. They nudged for space as they puffed up on their second sitting, and, by the time they were out they looked glorious in their golden crevices and sugar burnt hunches, flattering into characteristic pull apart rolls that need to be forked by the thumb and forefinger to tear them apart from their siblings. There’s a fun thing to it, to tear it apart in submission in an imperfect way and dunk it in milk over giggles and laughters with our little girl while tapping our feet to the melodies of Christmas jingles. That’s when you know you are up for a good start to a holiday season.
The frosting is purely optional. As for a daily bread, I would stay away from frosting these. They are sweet on their own and make a wonderfully perfect Sunday breakfast with a slather of some salted butter, or cream cheese and coffee by the side. But we are in a holiday season, and that calls for some adornment on the table to give it a festive ring. I have a clean, less sweeter old fashioned cooked vanilla frosting recipe that works really well for me. Since the bread is sweet by nature, a lighter frosting like this one is pleasing to our tastes. Unlike the traditional frosting where you mix milk to confectioners’ sugar till you get a desired consistency, this one is far better version that gives me a similar thick pour-able consistency, albeit far less sweeter than the original version. Give it a try, may be you'll fall for these too.
For the longest time, I've had aversion to cinnamon in all things sweet. Let me not even get to the whys of it, for all I know, cinnamon in my arena existed best in the legion of savories, given the exception for a good Christmas fruit cake where it favorably unites with clove, cardamom and other spices, veiled in a way that it does not hit your senses directly and ruin the flavor. But, here it comes finally, the world coveted Cinnamon rolls looming right out of my kitchen to yours. I’m close to being a convert, convincingly not a cinnamon-dessert-hater anymore. These don’t look a lot like the traditional rolls. I mean they are not enormous in size to consume your palm, certainly not the perfect looking rolls that stand flawlessly edged shoulder to shoulder giving them a clean rip, nor do they bask in the sugary coated frosting that sinks into every groove merrily.
I would probably rechristen these as cinnamon pull apart rolls; owing to the pans I had and the amount of dough I made, they ended up this way. But they are cinnamon rolls essentially, so let's stick to that. They don’t snatch away the authenticity from the traditional ones. They smell great in and out of the oven, are near identical in their recipe, forgiving the eggs in the dough. They sat squishing in an eight inch round baking pan, my ideal dish to bake a nice chocolate cake in, but this time around they doubled up as my bread pan too, saving me gracefully from sunken cockeyed bread had I baked them in my ten inch dish instead. They nudged for space as they puffed up on their second sitting, and, by the time they were out they looked glorious in their golden crevices and sugar burnt hunches, flattering into characteristic pull apart rolls that need to be forked by the thumb and forefinger to tear them apart from their siblings. There’s a fun thing to it, to tear it apart in submission in an imperfect way and dunk it in milk over giggles and laughters with our little girl while tapping our feet to the melodies of Christmas jingles. That’s when you know you are up for a good start to a holiday season.
The frosting is purely optional. As for a daily bread, I would stay away from frosting these. They are sweet on their own and make a wonderfully perfect Sunday breakfast with a slather of some salted butter, or cream cheese and coffee by the side. But we are in a holiday season, and that calls for some adornment on the table to give it a festive ring. I have a clean, less sweeter old fashioned cooked vanilla frosting recipe that works really well for me. Since the bread is sweet by nature, a lighter frosting like this one is pleasing to our tastes. Unlike the traditional frosting where you mix milk to confectioners’ sugar till you get a desired consistency, this one is far better version that gives me a similar thick pour-able consistency, albeit far less sweeter than the original version. Give it a try, may be you'll fall for these too.
Cinnamon Rolls with Cooked Vanilla Frosting
INGREDIENTS
For Cinnamon Rolls:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup milk (I used full fat milk)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp. active dry yeast (or rapid rise)
For the Cinnamon Sugar Filling:
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon powder
2 tbsp. melted butter
For the Cooked Vanilla Frosting:
1 cup full fat milk
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
DIRECTIONS
Heat the milk and butter in a large sauce pan till the butter has melted into the milk. Remove from heat and add in the sugar. Stir well and allow it cool down to lukewarm. The milk should be tepid enough to activate the yeast, but not too hot, else will kill the yeast.
Transfer the warm milk to a large mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast into it. Let it sit for 10 minutes, so that the yeast can feed on the sugar and froth.
Next, add flour starting with 1/2 cup at a time and stirring well as you go. Once it forms a loose batter, add the next half cup of flour and stir well. This will help activate the gluten in the dough and yield soft supple dough, resulting in a good, fluffy bread. Continue using all of the flour and stir well with each addition till it comes together to form a sticky dough. Knead it for a minute or two till its soft and supple.
Place the dough in an oiled deep dish and cover it with a dish cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. By this time the dough should double in size.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. I use the clean kitchen counter top that provides me ample space to work my dough on. Using a flour dusted rolling pin, roll the dough into a thin long rectangle. Brush it generously with melted butter. Prepare a mix of sugar and cinnamon powder and sprinkle it generously all over the dough.
Starting at the longer edge side, roll up the dough as tight as you can till forms a long log. To avoid opening up, place the seam side down. Using a cleaned knife dipped in flour, cut the log into slices of 1.5 inch each. Butter a 8x8-inch round baking tin. Place the rolls into the buttered tin, next to each other. Brush the rolls with some melted butter. Set aside to rise again for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake the rolls for 25-30 minutes or until the bread is golden brown in color. If the top of the bread seems to change color sooner, while the underside still seems uncooked, cover the top with an aluminium foil and continue to bake till done.
Remove from oven and allow it to cool completely. Frost as desired.
For the frosting, combine milk and flour in a saucepan. Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly, for about 3-5 minutes. The mixture should thicken and come to a boil. Add in sugar and stir well. Boil till the mixture coats the back of a wooden spatula, i.e. of custard consistency. Turn off the heat. Stir in vanilla essence. Cool completely. Before serving, whisk the frosting really well and swirl using a spoon on the cinnamon rolls.
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